


Cedar Tree

by Missy



Category: Venture Bros
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Character Death, Drama, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Recovery, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:58:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years later, Brock comes home...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cedar Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Alt canon for season 4.

His  
hands were bloody, his back ached, and he was stuck in a two-bit motel room in  
the middle of Red Square.In other words, it was a typical Tuesday for  
Brock Samson.

 

He wasn't behaving, however, in a manner typical to his person.Not gleefully wallowing in ultraviolence nor casually observing the situation, Brock sat in the middle of his borrowed bed, staring at his own hands with deadened eyes.

 

A voice at the back of his mind suggested that washing his hands might be a good idea.The dark red remnants of his latest battle had left sticky red patches on the tips of his fingers that caught the dim light of the TV set.Were it an ordinary day, he would have wiped them on his jeans hours ago, or perhaps ignored it and left a trail of red across the room and down the hallway, a pattern of gore that told the world "Brock Samson was here"

 

But the story's a different one when the blood you shed at the Kremlin belongs to your mentor.

 

The notion that he had killed Hunter to get to Mol, and that he had been forced to turn Mol in to the OSI to protect the good of the world, had the power to give Brock pause.At least he'd left Mol alive, at least there remained a marginal chance she might reform in prison.He had hardened himself against death years ago, so it wasn't the actual activity of dismemberment that made him shudder.

 

It was that it had been Hunter.His father figure.His mentor.

 

A phone began to ring, and it took him a minute to process the idea that the sound came from his own room.He reached for the receiver.

 

"Samson," he growled.

 

"Come home," a familiar young voice urged."Dean needs you."

 

"Triana?" he frowned."How the hell did you find me?"

 

"My dad has sources." A significant pause passed by."If it's about money I can send the jet..."

 

Brock rubbed a bloody palm across his forehead, opening a cut that ran crosswise to his hairline.He tried to reconcile the businesslike voice on the other end of the line with the sensitive but amusing teenager he'd known on leaving the Compound.Abruptly, his insides clenched as her words made landfall in his brain. "What's wrong with Dean?"

 

Her response came suddenly. "Do you know what happened with Hank?"

 

He nodded foolishly."Yeah.I'm sorry I didn't get in touch but.."

 

"Dean never could deal with life, and you know it."The accusation in her voice made him glower."His father left after the service, and that night, Dean locked himself up in his old bedroom.It's been two weeks, and he won't eat or sleep, and he won't let anyone in but me.He's wearing his old Spider Man pjs, and Brock, here's the sickest part of it, he thinks it's 2004."

 

Confronted by the hollowness of his big victory - the revenge he'd pursued for five long breathless years - Brock realized he had no choice.He was needed.

 

" I'l charter my own flight.Be there in twenty-four hours."

 

He didn't wait for Triana's goodbye before hanging up the phone.

 

***

** April 16th, 2013 **

** Venture Compound **

** Colorado Springs, Colorado **

 

 

****

 

Resolute is the footfall of a condemned man.Marching up the stairs of the Venture Compound five years after quitting his position as their bodyguard, Brock Samson felt the sting of his ancient departure.

 

He contemplated the closed door before him for a moment before rapping his left fist against it.Silence; his frustration built - he'd kicked it down before, and if no one answered his call he'd do it again without hesitation.

 

He lit up a cigarette, savoring the flavorful burn, allowing it to calm him.Where the hell was HELPer?Had he broken down, and if so why the hell hadn't Doc fixed him?As he floundered against his wildly conflicting thoughts the door parted, grinding against its moorings as it opened; metal on metal, a hideous sound that made his jaw clench.Didn't Dean have enough sense to oil the damn thing?

 

A shaft of light filled the dusty room before him, and it was the sight of the cobwebbed foyer that caused Brock to decide that the entire place had gone to shit in the long-term absence of his guidance.

 

"Sorry I couldn't make it to the airport," Triana called as she entered from the study."I can't leave Dean alone. Last time I tried that he ended up on the roof yelling something about chupacabras."

 

Brock couldn't keep the surprise off of his face as the pale-skinned woman approached him. Though her hair had grown longer and her outfit was that of a mature twenty-one-year old, her dark eyes and confident body language hadn't changed at all - they clearly marked her as the daughter of Byron Orpheus.Brock lifted his chin, grunting in acknowledgement."Triana."

 

She smiled, a faint parody of her usual smug good nature."He's upstairs."

 

Brock glanced at the long staircase, memories flooding back to him."You sure he wants to see me?"

 

A sad, wistful look crossed Triana's face."You're the only person he asked for.I offered to call his father, and he gave me the freakiest stare, like a bunny stabbed in the heart by a skewer."

 

Brock smirked at her grim imagery. "Still hanging out at the Hot Topic?"

 

Triana shook her head."You want me to take you to him?"

 

Brock had mounted the staircase, headed up the familiar pathway to the boys' old room."I know the way.Thanks."

 

She managed a wave of her hand, casting her eyes about the dirty room with a disenchanted expression, as if it were an emblem of Dean's suffering.

 

Brock could only search for the familiar room - with little effort he found it standing open - why hadn't Triana thought to shut the door? - and took the opportunity to enter.His heart sank at the spectacle before him.

 

The man sat facing away from Brock, staring blankly at a poster of Danica Patrick taped to the opposing wall.His skinny body had outgrown some of its gawkiness, but somehow it still seemed childish and vulnerable.The Spiderman pajamas he wore, the top coming to the middle of his stomach, the cuffs of the pants halfway up each calf didn't help, either.He sat at the very edge of the bed, rocked on his haunches, humming Brahm's Lullaby to himself at a slow but high pitch.

 

Caution, Brock decided, would be the best way to proceed."Dean?, he asked, using the softest voice he could manage, "it's Brock." 

 

His words spun the boy around."Brock?" he squeaked.Scrambling further up onto the bed, Dean whispered, "Ssh.The dragon'll hear you."

 

Brock automatically tossed a quick glance over his shoulder.His shoulders sloped."Dean, there isn't a dragon."

 

"Yes!" he hissed."Golly, he's right behind you." So quietly that Brock had to strain to hear him, Dean added, "he got Sir Hank. Brock's stomach roiled violently.Abruptly, Dean tried to grasp him with both hands, his eyes wide in madness."Don't let him get me and Lady Triana too," he begged.

 

Brock grabbed him by both shoulders."Dean, listen to me.There isn't any dragon.You're both safe."

 

Dean gave him a crazed grin that made Brock think in despair of Myra Brandish."I knew you'd come help me, Brock, he said, lying down in the sleeping unit, where he immediately fell asleep.

 

**

 

"Hello, you've reached the wrist communicator of Thaddeus Venture.I'm probably doing something VERY important, so if you're listening to this - don't bug me!"

 

"SUNUVABITCH," snarled Brock as he slammed his wrist down on the bar and enjoying the dramatic sound of glass cracking.He turned toward Triana at the sound of her chuckle.

 

"I've been trying that for three days," Triana pointed out, as she fixed them a pair of brandies.Brock's sharp look causes her to add, "there ARE things a girl can do by herself, Brock.You did know that, right?"

 

He swallowed down his drink and held out the empty glass, "make the next one a vodka.Neat."The only solution he could seem to find to his Dean-related misery floated at the bottom of the glass.

 

"She walked back to the bar, sparing Brock another wary look before taking up an ice pick and stabbing it repeatedly into a large hunk of ice."He knows."

 

Brock sighed deeply."Yeah, he knows that Hank's dead, so Doc can't go the clone route this time.Guess the truth made his mind snap.Won't be the first time - remember that whole fantasy where you were Princess Tinglepants and he was some warrior guy?" 

 

Triana rolled her eyes at the memory."Today's one of those days."

 

"What?"

 

"Where I wonder why I decided to start dating Dean," Triana shook her head.

 

But Brock understood.:You get each other.That's rare as hell."

 

She looked toward the ceiling."I love him."It was no revelation to Brock."I could bring him back before, but now he's somewhere where he can't even feel me." She shot him another look."You can fix him, can't you, Brock?"

 

She sounded more innocent than she'd ever sounded before."You're asking for a miracle, kid.Why didn't you, like, I dunno ask your father?

 

"He's not asking for my dad."Triana squeezed Brock's upper arm.She smiled, a little more wanly than before, and sipped her brandy."You saved him before.You can save him again."

 

**** 

 

The hours dragged by.Nothing Brock tried, no plea, no urgent words could stir Dean from his fantasy world.There were apparently dragons, and Triana was a helpless maiden named Lady Triana of Goodheadlights, and Brock, over the passing hours, ceased being "Brock" and became a cleric named The Great One.

 

After a full twenty-four hours of this, Brock cracked.He grabbed Dean in mid-rant and dragged him downstairs and into the compound's back grounds.

 

He didn't stop until he reached the family crypt.

 

"LOOK AT THAT," Brock demanded, shaking Dean hard enough to make his directionless gaze suddenly refocus."DO YOU SEE WHAT IT SAYS?" He recited aloud, "Henry Allen Venture: Born 1992, Died 2013."

 

Dean stared at the plaque, and then wildly shook his head."No..." Dean moaned.

 

"May Science Heal What Nature Could Not."Brock shook him, hard, one last time."It's the truth. Hank's dead." Dean's eyes cleared, his lip quivered."He had cancer.Lukemia," Brock said thickly."That's why your father let you go off to college, so you wouldn't see him suffer.He tried to bring him back," he deliberately used oblique terms, "but he couldn't get a good sample."Silence filled the eerie deathliness of the barren January desert.Brock spoke, "I've been chasing Mol around for so long, trying to get to Hunter.I let you boys think I didn't give a damn anymore," he laughed bitterly."Hank died thinking I didn't give a damn about him.That one's gonna haunt me to the grave." To his surprise, the urge to cry refused to leave him.Brock choked it down, fiercely controlling himself."I kept up with you through the news.That's how I found out about the funeral."He rested a hand on the crypt, sighed heavily."I'm sorry I let you both down."

 

Then Dean touched his shoulder."Why do people hafta go, Brock?"

 

Something inside of him solidified to iron."I don't know," he concluded, "but I'm not going anywhere again."

 

*** 

** July 18th, 2043 **

** Venture Family Crypt **

** Colorado Springs, Colorado **

 

***

 

The autumn-bright leaves of the cedar sapling are an incongruously cheerful riot of color beside the pale marble of the mausoleum.Dean brushes off his dirt-covered hands before standing up and looking at the closed door with its freshly-inscribed plaque.

 

"It'll be beautiful one day," Triana observes, coming up behind him.

 

"It'll grow big and tall, and watch over us all just like Brock," he turned to Triana and wondered, "you don't think the service was too small?"

 

"It's what he would have wanted," Triana says."No muss or fanfare."

 

"I know.In an abrupt gesture of feeling, he concludes, He taught me how to be a man."

 

Triana smiles, strokes his shoulder."He was a great guy.A bit of a horndog..."

 

Dean gasped, "Triana!Don't speak ill of the dead!!" 

 

"Brock was a horndog.And a little psycho.But overall, a cool cat."

 

Dean nods, distracted momentarily by the sound of childish laughter."Sam! Marie!" he shouts, stifling his own laughter as two small, red-haired children peeped cautiously at him through the branches of the artificial pine barren. "It's a graveyard, for goshsakes, not a playground!"

 

"You sound just like your father," Triana teases him.

 

"Don't remind me," Dean mumbles, running a free hand over his balding pate.Then he brushes his fingers, just once, across the stone surface before turning, collecting the children, and leaving - his arm wrapped around Triana.

 

The inscription, embossed deep and true into the metal plaque, had been his idea:

 

_ Here lies Brock Samson. _

_ Loyal Friend and Bodyguard. _

_ Home forever. _


End file.
